


Right back where we started from

by KristiLynn



Category: The OC
Genre: F/M, Family, Post-Finale, drug overdose mention, instant family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-05
Updated: 2016-06-05
Packaged: 2018-07-12 12:00:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7102348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KristiLynn/pseuds/KristiLynn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Taylor had always known that this day would one day come. That one day Ryan would meet a kid in need, a kid so much like him he wouldn’t be able to keep from helping him. Because that’s the type of man that Ryan was, that was the man she fell in love with.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Right back where we started from

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Pameluke](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pameluke/gifts).



\---

California here we come,  
Right back where we started from

\---

1.

Wil walked through the door with a story Taylor and Ryan knew all too well. He was just a kid with a mom who was a mess and a dad who was nowhere to be found. 

“This is Wil,” Ryan said with a smile that seemed to say ‘He had nowhere else to go’.

“Hi Wil.” Taylor smiled back at Ryan and pulled a plate out of the cabinet. “Have a seat, I’ll make you a plate. You must be starving.” 

“Thank you ma’am.”

Taylor had always known that this day would one day come. That one day Ryan would meet a kid in need, a kid so much like him he wouldn’t be able to keep from helping him. Because that’s the type of man that Ryan was, that was the man she fell in love with. So she had told herself that when it happened she’d be ready. 

But she clearly had over estimated herself, because right now she was freaking out. 

“What if I can’t do this?” She asked Kirsten later that night as she hid in the laundry room, not wanting Ryan or Wil to hear her fears. “He needs a mother and it’s not like I had the best role model in that department. What if I screw him up even more than he already is?” 

“Taylor, Taylor take a breath.” Kirsten told her in a slow soothing tone that had come from many phone calls like. “I’ve been in your shoes before, I know how you’re feeling. But you have to take it one day at a time and you’ll be fine.” 

“One day at a time and I’ll be fine,” Taylor repeated to herself..

\---

 

2\. 

So that’s what she did. She took things one day at a time. And before she knew it almost three months had past, she and Ryan had become Wil’s official guardians and they had their only little routine going on. 

“Where did that paper about student conduct go?” Ryan asked as he and Taylor sat at the kitchen table filling out papers that needed to be turned into the Harbor admissions office in the morning.

“I can go to public school, it’s really okay.” Wil told them.. “You guys don’t have to go out of your way for me. Especially since they might not let me in.”

“We’re not going out of our way,” Taylor said. “Ryan and I are Harbor graduates. So you’re a legacy. That means you’re getting in, all of this paperwork is just a formality.” 

“What Taylor’s saying,” Ryan interrupted, “Is if you’re worried that you're not going to get in don’t be. Besides, your grades show you are more than capable of handling the workload.”

“Yeah but,” Wil began and then stopped. “Nevermind.”

Taylor sat down her pen and took Wil’s hand. “Are you worried no one will like you? That you won’t make any friends because of where you come from?” Wil gave a shrug that didn’t completely answer the question. “Look, Ryan’s been where you are. And yeah it was tough for him for a while but eventually he fit right in. And besides not having any friends isn’t the end of the world. I didn’t have friends until senior year and it didn’t effect me at all.”

Ryan turned his head towards her and wrinkled his brow. “You slept with Dean Hess.” 

Taylor was quiet for moment. “Okay yes” she rolled her eyes “but to be fair that probably would have happened even if I did have friends.”

Wil’s eyes darted back and forth between the two and he just shook his head. Everyone was right, he wasn’t in Chino anymore. 

 

\---

 

3\. 

Wil did make friends, he even had a boyfriend; he joined the marching band, and he had a life that never would have been possible even a few months earlier. And then when Wil had been with them just shy of a year Ryan and Taylor received the call about his mother. The police found her dead in an abandoned house, all signs pointed to an overdose. 

Wil was never an outgoing kid but once they received the news he shut down completely. He stayed holed up in his room, stopped going to school, stopped talking with his friends. Taylor couldn’t believe that she had thought she couldn’t do this, couldn’t mother him. Because at that moment as she watched him pull away from everyone and everything she felt completely helpless. She couldn’t lose him. 

So she did what her own mother couldn’t, she let him know that she was there for him. And it took a while but finally came back out of his shell. 

Wil walked into the kitchen while Taylor and Ryan were washing the dishes from dinner, grabbed an orange from the fruit basket and began to roll it back forth on the counter. “So...What happens now?” he asked hesitantly. “To me? To us?”

Taylor wiped her hands on a nearby towel and turned around. “That’s up to you,” she told him. “You’re staying here. That’s a given. But Ryan and I, we want to formally adopt you. If that’s what you want.” 

“Really? You want me to be your kid?” 

“You’ve been our kid from the moment you set foot in this house,” Ryan said “All we’d be doing is making it legal.” 

Wil was silent for a minute. And then, barely above a whisper he said, “My whole life all I heard from my mom was how she didn’t want me. How her life would have been better if she’d let me become one of those babies you see on the news, you know the ones they find in some gas station bathroom off the 405. I never felt wanted before.” As he talked his voice got louder, more confident. “I do now.”

“So is that a yes?” Taylor asked hopeful. “You want to go through with the adoption?”

Wil nodded his head. “Yeah, I do.”


End file.
